Tom McGee's Blog

Last Sat­ur­day found us on a photo safari up to the New Jer­sey Botan­i­cal Gar­dens at Sky­lands. I try to get up there every year or two to spend a few hours wan­der­ing around the beau­ti­ful moun­tain­top grounds, and check­ing out what’s in bloom. This time of year, it’s daf­fodils and cherry trees, with the occa­sional magnolia.

Here’s the crabap­ple allee, a 1600-foot long stretch lined on either side with reg­u­larly spaced crabap­ple saplings. They were just begin­ning to open, so you can’t see much of the color yet.

Beau­ti­ful and spa­cious lawns invite kite flying.

Stat­ues based on greek mythol­ogy abound. Here’s Pan sur­round by daf­fodils and boxwood.

And a cherub backed by bloom­ing cherry trees.

The moun­tain­top set­ting offers won­der­ful vis­tas of dis­tant hills and reser­voirs. A woman shoot­ing pho­tos nearby told us that just this win­ter the cherry tree in the fore­ground lost most of its top in a storm. It had formed a wide canopy off to the left side.

In addi­tion to the main man­sion, there are lots of beau­ti­ful out­build­ings. This gran­ite build­ing with the clock tower houses — the well. And a few tools. They don’t build them like that anymore.

After­wards we drove a few miles over to Ring­wood Manor. Fea­tured in Weird New Jer­sey as well as some of C’s favorite haunted-house TV shows, it shows a lot more, well, weird­ness than Skylands.

I feel as though sphin­xes are rel­a­tively unusual yard dec­o­ra­tions around here, espe­cially when, like these, they guard the entrance to the children’s play room.

The Egypt­ian motif car­ries through some areas of the grounds. One sec­tion has two rows of Greek-style columns, with­out a roof. Here are a few rows of vaguely Love­craft­ian lanterns under a dense canopy of trees.

If you find your­self up in north-central New Jer­sey, this is a place you want to go. C took a bunch of great pic­tures, way more than I did. Maybe she put them up on Flickr — remind me to check.